Europe's collapsing grain mountain fuels food scare

The UN's World Food Summit in Rome has pledged to halve malnutrition within 20 years. But, as Fred Pearce reports, many delegates at last week's meeting argued that too much faith is being placed in scientific fixes

THE decline of Europe's grain mountain since the early 1990s has pushed the world to the brink of a food crisis, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned the summit. Global food stocks are approaching their lowest levels for more than 20 years.

The FAO estimates that stocks of grains such as wheat, rice and maize stand at 15.5 per cent of annual consumption. This is up 1 per cent from a year ago, but is still below the safety threshold of 17 to 18 per cent recommended by the FAO in the early 1970s. Wheat stocks, which formed the bulk of Europe's grain mountain, have fallen since the mid-1980s, from nearly half of ...

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